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  #11  
Old 11-17-2010, 10:47 AM
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Smile What Yelle says about French music and America

Yelle speaks to the issue of the French language barrier in reaching the US audience in a couple intervoews excerpted below.

bloginity.com interview
<blockquote><i>Daniel: Music is a universal language and you’ve been traveling the world with your album, What do you think about your fans that are able to connect to your music even though they don’t understand the language?

Yelle: “I was thinking it’ll be a problem at the beginning but today i can see it’s not. I think maybe french is exotic for english people and even if they don’t understand the lyrics they can understand the spirit.”

...

Daniel: It’s very hard to break through in the united states singing in a foreign language. And you had success here so far, what do you attribute this success to?

Yelle: “I think people like the french and french language and culture and french lyrics mix with catchy and dancy music it’s cool!”

Daniel: Are there plans for you to record any of your songs in English?

Yelle: ”First, my english is kind of cheap (!), and well, i love singing in french, and i guess people like it too. I love the idea to release the next album in 10 languages! like crooners, it could be fun!”</i></blockquote>austinist.com interview<blockquote><i>[Q.] Because a lot of people in the U.S. don’t get too much access to French dance-oriented musicians, do you feel like you’re representing your country?

[A.] I think I represent the country by the lyrics because we are singing in French, and I think it’s really cool to be a French band in U.S. For example, five years ago I was not thinking about doing shows in U.S. because I was not singing in English, and I’m really happy about that because lots of my friends who are doing music in a French band are singing in English and thinking about, “yes, maybe one day we’ll play in America!” and stuff, and I see now finally it’s not the rule, you can sing in French and go around the world and meet people, and I think it’s just about energy and how people can feel what you sing, you know? People sometimes don’t understand what I’m talking about, but you can use your body to express what you are talking about.</i></blockquote>

Last edited by FanDeAliFee; 11-17-2010 at 07:10 PM.. Reason: add 2nd interview excerpt
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  #12  
Old 11-17-2010, 11:24 AM
Mi-coton mi-laine Mi-coton mi-laine is offline
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Interesting Yelle videos! Never heard of her until now. 'A cause des garçons' is very catchy, reminds me of Lily Allen and The Ting Tings.
I bet Katy Perry only mentioned the other song because her photo was used or there is a quirky usage of many celebrities with cute animals.
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  #13  
Old 11-17-2010, 03:41 PM
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Cool French Radio London debuts in metro & via Internet

French Radio London debuts in metro & via Internet

A BBC article titled Can we learn to love French pop music? covers the debut today of French Radio London, the capital's first Gallic music station. The station writes about itself as follows::<blockquote>For most of the past 50 years, French music has not been cool... And yet... the last 15 years has seen the emergence of cool Gallic acts like Daft Punk, Air and Phoenix... For more than a decade France has imposed quotas of about 40% French language songs on radio... [But at the new London station] 80% of the station's music will be by French artists or in their native tongue.</blockquote>Among comments posted under the article are the following two.

Ian Oliver, via Facebook, writes:
Its no better nor worse than English language pop music... Myléne Farmer sounds like a cross between The Cure and Madonna with her head in a bucket. And brought Alizee (see below) into the pop world.

Al, London writes:
I think the main difference between French and British music is, in general, that French music has much more emphasis on the lyrics whereas British music is more music oriented. This gives the French music an inherent disadvantage in a non-Francophone world...

The station's Website can switch between French and English text. Find the English home page here. It writes this about itself:
<blockquote>For London's 400,000 native French speakers and the countless Francophiles, French Radio London (FRL) is the first French language terrestrial broadcast station... [and] has the best coverage of any of the three London multiplexes, reaching approximately 11 million people.</blockquote> and offers an explanation of its programming philosophy on the same page. Find its daily schedule here.

Should you want to absolutely forbid the station from playing Alizée songs, you can send them Webmail. They write that You will soon be able to download tracks you heard on FRL through iTtunes and Amazon. If your return e-mail address is something like Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo, rather than me@NonBritishTelecom.com they would not immediately surmise whether or not you live in metro London.

In any case, they are happy to stream a reliable signal to North America. Find the link to start it up on their home
page.

The advent of this happy development merits inclusion of an old France Gall song via the video below. Enjoy!


<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/APUFKSvUNhk?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/APUFKSvUNhk?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Last edited by FanDeAliFee; 11-17-2010 at 03:55 PM.. Reason: mend typos
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  #14  
Old 11-18-2010, 01:31 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FanDeAliFee View Post
French Radio London debuts in metro & via Internet

A BBC article titled Can we learn to love French pop music? covers the debut today of French Radio London, the capital's first Gallic music station. The station writes about itself as follows::<blockquote>For most of the past 50 years, French music has not been cool... And yet... the last 15 years has seen the emergence of cool Gallic acts like Daft Punk, Air and Phoenix... For more than a decade France has imposed quotas of about 40% French language songs on radio... [But at the new London station] 80% of the station's music will be by French artists or in their native tongue.</blockquote>Among comments posted under the article are the following two.

Ian Oliver, via Facebook, writes:
Its no better nor worse than English language pop music... Myléne Farmer sounds like a cross between The Cure and Madonna with her head in a bucket. And brought Alizee (see below) into the pop world.
aLRight, FanDe! I was hoping someone else here might have noticed that article! (I shoulda known who it woulda been...)

Anyway, the one comment mentions Alizée, and then says "see below", but then there's no way of seeing the other "below" comment being referenced! Fooey. But I sure did enjoy the "head in a bucket" line. Made my day. And if England might be showing renewed interest in French pop music, can't it happpen in the U.S., too?
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  #15  
Old 11-18-2010, 09:18 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woohoo View Post
Doesn't Lagy gaga have some lyrics in french?
<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qrO4YZeyl0I?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qrO4YZeyl0I?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
/One billion + channel views, 307 mil for that video, and more every day.
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  #16  
Old 11-19-2010, 07:40 AM
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Smile Lazy BBC editing?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuck View Post
Anyway, the one comment mentions Alizée, and then says "see below", but then there's no way of seeing the other "below" comment being referenced! Fooey...
The BBC edits comments which are submitted to them - for which I am grateful. Evidently, their editor did not think the cited commenter's additional remarks (including those on Alizée) were interesting enough to include. I often quote sources in an honest way using an embedded ellipsis, but perhaps that is against BBC policy. Or, maybe leaving in the "see below" was an oversight. In any event, I was glad to see that the commenter had more to say about Alizée and I abstained from striking the additional text myself, so readers here could share this small delight. Has anyone here submitted a comment to this article?
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  #17  
Old 11-21-2010, 07:38 PM
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Smile How many Americans know French? Who are they?

How many Americans know French? Who are they? We answer these and related questions in this post.

Roughly speaking, 1.6 million Americans age 5+ speak French at home. Six times as many adults (age 18+), about 10 million, can converse in French, and comprise 4.4 percent of US adults. In contrast, in the UK, a fraction twice as large, about 9% of adults (age 15+) have more than basic French skills. In France, about 20 percent of adults (age 15+), and 33 percent of those ages 15-29 have more than basic English skills.

In America, over 13 million people report their dominant ancestry as French. About HALF as many Canadians, 6.6 million, speak French at home, 91% resident in Québéc. About 3 million Québécois, some 41%, are bilingual. The population of metropolitan France is 63 million, about five times as numerous as nominal Franco-Americans.

<big><big>French surnames - provincial per capita densities</big></big>



The continuing advance of English has academic fallout. Only 44% of US high school students and less than 8% of US university undergrads study foreign languages. The fraction of European Union high school students who study a foreign language is 48% in the UK, 81% in Ireland and 96% to 100% in other nations.

In the US, French is spoken mainly by the Louisiana Creole, native French, Cajun, Haitian, and French-Canadian populations. French is the second de facto language in the US state of Louisiana (where the French dialect of Cajun/Creole predominates). The largest [at-home] French-speaking communities in the United States reside in Northeast Maine; Hollywood and Miami, Florida; New York City; certain areas of rural Louisiana; and small minorities in Vermont and New Hampshire. Among US adults who can converse in French, WOMEN OUTNUMBER MEN ALMOST (23/12) TWO TO ONE. The proportion of Americans who speak French as a second language increases with advanced education

<big><big>US regions where French is spoken at home</big></big>

<table width="435" align="center"><tr><td>At-home French language distribution in the United States. Counties and parishes marked in yellow are those where 6% to 12% of the population speak French at home; brown, 12% to 18%; red, over 18%. Cajun French and French-based creole languages are not included even though the Creole dialects are spoken throughout the U.S. and taught in many U.S. schools.</td></tr></table>

Last edited by FanDeAliFee; 03-23-2011 at 10:23 AM.. Reason: add map of French surnames - provincial per capita densities
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  #18  
Old 11-21-2010, 07:49 PM
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  #19  
Old 11-22-2010, 05:29 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FanDeAliFee View Post
I've argued that the biggest problem which Alizée faces in selling her music in the United States of America is that, compared to many other countries, this market is very unfriendly to songs with lyrics not in the dominant native language (English).

Alizée has indeed sung in English. There are examples of her singing both with and without an obvious French accent. But worldwide, I don't think her English songs have ever had the popularity of her French songs.

That's what makes it interesting to examine the RARE songs with (at least SOME, i.e. macaronic ) French lyrics which HAVE made it big in America. Do they have anything in common?

Of course, I exclude from consideration French melodies which became hits in the United States using English lyrics. The best example is probably Frank Sinatra's My Way. Others are Elvis' Can't Help Falling in Love, Yesterday When I Was Young, Love Is Blue and If You Go Away

Please bring our attention to songs of interest to this thread.


<hr size="10" color="black">

Song: Dominique (1963)

<object height="344" width="425">


<embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/_QnXgPB35w8?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></object>

<hr size="10" color="black">

Song: What Have They Done To My Song Ma (1971)

<object height="344" width="425">


<embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/Cqg3kcwAgso?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></object>
Those songs came out before "stuff" happened therefore I dont know if it is fair to compare them to now!
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  #20  
Old 11-27-2010, 08:06 PM
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Smile Tonight's The Night [Gonna Be Alright] - sorta

Song: Tonight's The Night (Gonna Be Alright) (1976)

This one is a real stretch! While Rod Stewart sings the song per se entirely in English, at its end girlfriend Britt Ekland passionately spurts out some French narration, translated here. In the song Stewart asks his friend to "loosen that pretty French gown."

Ekland had first come into the public eye when she married actor Peter Sellers in 1964, but by the time of this recording had been a James Bond girl (JBG!) in the 1974 film The Man with the Golden Gun.

You can watch the music video for the song here.

Last edited by FanDeAliFee; 02-21-2011 at 05:20 PM.. Reason: add maughty pun
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